Tuesday, 4 September 2012

POLITICS SUCK

I’ve written about politics
before on this blog, as it’s one of those exhaustive and often absurd subjects
that one can mine for gems and never come up disappointed (sickened yes; but
disappointed due to a lack of material, nope). But in truth, as much as I have
strong opinions on many things in the political arena, I hate politics. I think
its mere existence is the ruin of man. Yes, a bold statement I realize, but
let’s be honest, the nature of politics is divisive, elitist, polarizing and
deceptive. In fact, I’ll go one
further, and simply call politics and those that inhabit it, a bunch of con
artists that enjoy the spoils of war and the heat of battle more than they ever
enjoy doing things for their fellow man. And to think the origin of the word is
‘of, for or relating to citizens.’ The citizen, perhaps once did have a front row seat, say back when Jefferson was in power, but now takes a back seat to the
politician and his/her agenda any day of the week. Let’s not pretend otherwise
at this point.

Merely looking at the
campaigning process – the most garish form of politicking – should remind us
all that politics is no longer about the citizen or what we need as a nation or want. Instead we are all forced to witness a
three ring circus where so much money is spent to merely elect this one
individual, it begs to ask why in a day and age when people are out of work and
the world is hemorrhaging money, do we need to output this much cash to elect a
President. I think we all could do without the majority of the hot air that is pushed around – not to mention the utterly cheesy conventions where bad music
is played and absurdly rich white men (I'm talking the majority here) with no rhythm attempt to dance and canoodle with their
wives in an intimate manner ('look everyone, we have a real marriage and we
really love our kids...oh, and God and our dog Skip').

The truth of the matter is
this – and if you still do not know this then please go take a political
science class and economics while you're at it – one single man does NOT run our country (so think about that
the next time you cast your vote). The masses may think he does – most do and lay all their complaints, blame, and grievances at his door, as he is
the ‘face’ man - but our government is run by the House, the Senate, Wall
Street, and a whole bunch of lobbyists, each jockeying for a better position on
the totem poll and all willing to sell their own mother to get there (of course conspiracy
theorists would say our government is run by the Secret Service as well as the
wealthiest upper echelon of America who call all the shots. Or purchase them if
you will). What’s even more absurd is that within the House and Senate is a
bunch of men and women (a small majority of women I might add) who happily
define themselves by opposing the other side of the room. 'I disagree; therefore I AM!' And we wonder why
things in the government do not function anymore. By sheer design, having two
parties that profoundly oppose one another, whilst often engaging in vitriolic
and hateful rhetoric like it’s a sport, and then try to get them to agree on something
is utterly counter productive and counter intuitive.

Of course, and this is the part
of politics I hate the most; when it suits them, or shall I say, when it serves
them, the two opposing parties can happily call a truce and come to some sort
of agreement on things. Not to mention the hypocrisy goes further with the
lobbyists who are desperately trying to amass votes to get ‘x’ bill passed, can
suddenly and shockingly support something else that goes against everything
they stand for just to get that one vote they’re searching for. So, as most of
us know by now, politics are not for the principled.

So why do I bother voting? I
suppose firstly because I can (we women fought very hard for that right, so I’m
going to use it). And secondly, there are a few issues that I feel very
strongly about and hence why I will vote a certain way each election time
regardless of the ‘face man’ they put in front of me. Often, I’m not even
voting for the man (although sometimes I will try to pick the least offensive, ineloquent buffoon), I’m voting for the few things I don’t want to see abolished
or swept under the carpet (that's the idealist in me anyway). In fact I believe many people vote this way. Some
vote with their pocketbook, some vote for their reproductive rights, some for
the environment, and some cling onto that idealist notion that the arts programs
in our country still stand a chance of existing. HA! But does the majority vote for the ideals of the party full stop, I think not. Or at least, I hope not.

Of course every candidate
will promise all things to all people, but I’m hoping everyone knows that most
of what is promised is not delivered based on the mere fact that once that
President gets elected, he enters the political machine. A dysfunctional, rusty, corrupt machine that only serves itself. And unless the ‘machine’
wants to pass something and it behooves them to do so, it’s going to dwell in the quagmire for an awful long
time…and then of course they'll take a vacation and make us all pay for it.